The Jersey Devil

by Hunter Shea

  “You’ll have to lead me,” she said.

  Daniela tugged her arm. “Let’s go.”

  Taking their first step together, Daniela screamed. Heather was momentarily lifted off the ground. Panicking, Heather let go of her friend’s hand, dropping heavily onto the road. When she looked up, she could just make out a black blob wavering in the air.

  “Oh, my God! Heather! Help!”

  The blob came into focus. Heather froze.

  The creature that had Daniela was five times the size of the ones they’d seen before. It held Daniela in the crook of a sinewy arm.

  Heather looked into its terrifying face, reminding her of pictures of Satan, his face like that of a ram. She couldn’t stop herself from peeing.

  Daniela struggled to break free, but if she fell from that height, she’d be killed.

  Better that than spending another moment with that monster!

  “Hold on, Daniela!”

  A rock! A rock! I need to find something to throw at it . . . if I can even reach it. Maybe if I piss it off enough, it’ll come for me and let her go. Then we can both take off into the woods.

  As Heather bent down to grab a palm-sized rock, something tore into her shoulders and she was carried aloft. The pain was excruciating.

  Before she knew it, she was beside Daniela, both of them dangling in the grasp of winged creatures that would give the sturdiest person nightmares for life. Daniela reached out to touch her, but the big monster veered away. Whatever had ahold of Heather quickly followed. She watched with sickening dread as the tops of the trees swept by, the unbroken glare of the sun searing her skin as she and Daniela were carried like small prey.

  * * *

  They’d left Carol with Bill’s body, promising to call the police once they found a spot with reception. April kept checking Norm’s phone, looking for bars so she could make the call.

  If there wasn’t work to be done, Sam Willet would have happily laid down and died. In just twenty-four hours, he’d watched his grandson get snatched away by the creature that had haunted his entire life, and now he’d lost his son. Anger was the only thing keeping him going now. The need for revenge would have to be the blood that ran through his veins, the air that filled his lungs and the muscle that kept his heart pumping.

  He turned to Norm. “You’re the one that’s spent years studying animals. What the hell was that back there? Why are these things out now, and attacking people without a care in the world?”

  Norm scratched his wiry goatee. “I’ve been thinking about that. It’s a-almost as if there’s been some kind of m-mass hatching. They’re newly born and they’re hungry. Or, like a bird, they’ve been p-p-pushed out of the nest. There’s also the possibility that some unknown catalyst has ch-changed their behavioral patterns. Whatever it is, they’re not out just for sport. They were f-feeding back there. They saw those people entering the bar and it was like dropping birdseed into a feeder.”

  “You don’t think it’s our presence that’s done it, do you?”

  Sam had enough weight to carry on his old soul. He wasn’t sure he could bear any more.

  To his relief, Norm shook his head. “Sure, it’s escalated since our arrival, but we came out here because it had already started.” He lifted the cover off the cooler, looking at the sealed garbage bags. “These things d-don’t look like newborns, so they’ve either come to m-maturity and are just doing wh-what comes natural, or we’re left with the mystery of what’s driving them to go m-mad. We took a hell of a lot out back there. That could either drive them back into hiding, or get the m-mother very angry.”

  “When you say mother, you mean the big one?”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Norm said, “That could have been it . . . or the father. This is an unknown species. There’s n-no way to tell for sure.”

  The van swerved sharply and they almost slipped off their seats.

  “Sorry, there was a dead deer in the middle of the road,” Ben said. It was the first time he’d spoken since they’d gotten in the van. Sam saw something wash over his grandson’s face that frightened him after they’d covered his father’s body.

  “Can these things actually be demons?” April asked, breaking his thoughts.

  Running his fingers along the stock of the rifle on his lap, Sam said, “I don’t rightfully know. If you’d asked me before we came here, I’d tell you that was fairy-tale stuff. I’d always believed it was some kind of animal, but wondered how it put that mark on your grandmother and transferred it to your father and you kids. Your grandmother and I used to think—hoped is more like it—that is was a kind of benign infection, like psoriasis. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe Momma Leeds really did give birth to the Devil’s child.”

  April’s eyes were red and swollen. She’d said she would save the rest of her tears for when everything was over.

  “You think there’s a chance Daryl is okay?” she said, eyeing the phone.

  “Before what happened back there, my gut was telling me he was all right. Now I know it for sure. Those things didn’t intentionally kill your father. It looked to me that it just grabbed him in the wrong place. Think about it. There were so many in that bar, they could have easily overwhelmed us,” Sam said.

  Ben said, “Yeah, but we had guns. The dead people in the bar didn’t.”

  “I don’t think it matters. Even with our firepower, we were outnumbered and in a cramped space. What I saw was a couple of those Devils trying to make off with your father like they did with Daryl. He had the mark. That mark has to mean something. No, we’re being saved for something, but I don’t know what.”

  A chill ran up his spine.

  How much worse could it get?

  They’d find out when they got to Leeds Point.

  * * *

  “You can talk?”

  Daryl’s mouth had dropped open the moment he heard her speak and he hadn’t been able to shut it since.

  “Please,” the woman said, her chin quivering, hands trembling.

  He reached out a hand to her, but she scampered back.

  “What’s your name?”

  The question stopped her trembling. She closed her eyes, seeming to concentrate.

  “J . . . Jane.”

  “How long have you been out here, Jane?”

  Daryl awkwardly sat on the ground so he wasn’t towering over her. He needed to get her to keep talking. Other than his knife, knowledge was the only weapon he had out here.

  “I don’t . . . don’t know.”

  “Why did you try to kill me?”

  It was a rational question, at least to him.

  “They’re so . . . hungry.”

  “What’s so hungry?”

  She nervously looked around. For a second, he thought she might bolt. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to give chase.

  “The demons,” she said in a hushed tone reserved for funerals.

  He leaned closer to her, relieved that she didn’t shy away. “You mean those things with the wings and hooves and tails?”

  Her head bobbed up and down, dirt flaking from her hair.

  “We call them the Jersey Devil,” he said.

  The name didn’t register at all with her.

  “What have they done to you?”

  Again, nothing. He had to try another tack.

  “Where do they live? I know there are a bunch of them.”

  She pointed at the ground.

  “In that pit?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a tunnel or something right under here?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you mean? They live underground?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where, underground?”

  “Not far. A very . . . big place. A building under the ground.”

  A building underground? Please don’t tell me this is some government program gone wrong.

  “How far is it from here?”

  “Not . . . far. But we can’t go there. Not now.”
>
  “Why not?”

  “I’m not allowed when they’re . . . not there. Not allowed. Not allowed.”

  He held out his hands. “Okay, I get it. You’re not allowed. At least you can take me there, show me where they go.”

  When she’d first started to talk, he held out hope that she might be able to tell him how to get out of these woods. Now he knew she was fully gone, as part of the forest as the trees and the Jersey Devil. Why was she with the creatures, and why did they keep her around?

  “No,” she said, shaking her head violently. She stared at his knife. “You’ll hurt them.”

  “I’ve seen them in action. There isn’t much I could do with just this knife.”

  Her hand fluttered over her stomach. She said, “My . . . my babies. Can’t hurt my babies.”

  Daryl felt the world slip out from under him.

  “What do you mean your babies?”

  She looked to the sky. “They fly with it right now. It ran out of food. They need . . . need to eat.”

  “I’ve seen those creatures. They can’t be your babies.”

  The woman . . . Jane . . . must have had some kind of psychotic break. If she’d been out here, around the Jersey Devil and its minions, he couldn’t blame her.

  “I want it to . . . die,” she sputtered. “Leave me and my babies alone.”

  “What do you mean by it?”

  “The one that took me. The one that . . . rapes me. It hurts me . . . inside. You can make it go away?”

  Daryl struggled to his feet.

  Oh, boy, this one’s gone. She doesn’t know her ass from a moonbeam.

  “Jane, I can barely stand at this point. Where do you get water? If I don’t drink soon, I think I’m gonna pass out.”

  “Water?”

  “Yes, water. I need some real bad.”

  When she stood, he saw a fresh gush of milk flow from her breasts. Talking about her babies had set everything off. She started walking, and he followed.

  She has to be crazy. She may have a baby, but it’s a human baby and either dead or lost.

  Right?

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Erik Smythe had been planning the big event for five months now. He couldn’t believe it was finally here. And the weather, though a little on the hot side, was about as good as he could have asked for.

  He and several volunteers had worked all morning setting up the outdoor stage and running all of the electric cables so they could get the soundboard running.

  Looking at his checklist, he flipped the page to the order of bands that would be performing for the charity benefit: fifteen bands in all, most of them local but some coming from as far away as Kentucky.

  The anti-bullying benefit had been his idea, spawned by the death of one of his classmates, a quiet kid named Larry Quinto. Larry had killed himself after posting a video on Facebook, tears streaming down his face, saying he couldn’t face another day of being ridiculed and literally pushed around in school. Time seemed to stop for a while at Erik’s school when Larry’s body was found at the Smithville parking garage.

  When it restarted, Erik wanted to make sure no one forgot the lesson they’d all been tragically taught. He’d formed an anti-bullying club in school and this benefit was the culmination of all his hard work and passion.

  His own band, Skeeter Beater, would be performing later in the day. It was going to be a blast, having such a big crowd, bringing punk back to New Jersey, if only for seven songs—four of them covers of The Dead Kennedys, The Ramones, Gorilla Biscuits and an obscure Boston band called Jerry’s Kids.

  “Dude, you need me to go up and do a sound check?” his pal Darren said. His band, Hippie Clipper, was set to be the next to last show for the day. It was a pretty important slot.

  Darren was as thin as a pipe cleaner, black skinny jeans hanging off his sharp hips. He wore his orange hair over his face and was known to chew his bangs when he was nervous. Like right now.

  “I hope you washed your hair, man,” Erik said.

  Darren stopped chewing, spitting out the wet strands. “This is huge. The most people we ever played in front of was like thirty at Bridget’s sweet sixteen.”

  Erik shrugged, uncoiling some wires. “Thirty, a thousand, what’s the difference?”

  “How about like nine hundred and seventy!”

  “Shit, when you say it like that, I guess it is gonna be weird.” Erik smiled, punching his friend on the shoulder. “You got the girls in the ticket booth all set up?”

  “Yeah. All’s good. There are already people lining up to get in the park.”

  Initially, the idea had been to host the event in Atlantic City, but they decided it was better to do it right here where Larry had lived . . . and died. It would have more impact that way. The fairgrounds were right next to the beach. They’d get tons of people coming for the show, and once the music started, he was sure it would attract plenty of sunbathers as well.

  “Let me just finish this and you can jump on stage,” Erik said.

  “Who’s the first band?”

  “Diana.”

  “She is so freaking hot. I can’t wait until everyone sees her, all preppy until they hit that first sweet note and she goes total grindcore.”

  “Yeah, it’ll be sick.”

  “What the heck is that?” Erik heard a girl say behind him. He didn’t know her name, but she’d been helping get the refreshment stand together.

  “What?”

  She shielded her eyes from the sun, looking up at a clear azure sky. “I thought I saw something.

  Erik looked up but didn’t see a thing. “Probably someone flying a drone or something.”

  The girl had already gone back to stacking paper cups.

  I should have thought of that. We could have had a drone with a camera filming the whole thing from the air. I bet we could sell copies of the benefit to fans of the bands. Damn.

  Turning to Darren, he asked, “You know anyone with one of those camera drones?”

  Darren’s eyebrow arched. “No, but I can find someone.”

  “Cool. Forget the sound check. Go work your magic.”

  * * *

  After jumping off the Garden State Parkway, they got on Route 561. Leeds Point was just a few miles away. April worked hard to keep her mind on what needed to be done. The grief of losing her father kept trying to bubble up to the surface. Then there was Daryl, a big question mark that felt like a hundred-ton weight on her chest. Last, but miles from least, was the very real horror of the Jersey Devil that had to be faced and overcome, or else many more people would lose their lives before the day was done.

  Boompa handed her a piece of paper with an address on it.

  “Is the GPS working?” he asked.

  She checked. “Yes.”

  “Plug that in. It’ll take us to the one person who I know will help us find what’s left of the Leeds house. People who come out here usually go to one of two purported houses. Neither is the real McCoy.”

  April’s fingers had a hard time entering the address. Ben hadn’t spoken in a while now. She saw the hate simmering in his eyes and in the way his jaw kept flexing.

  She’d thought it would be hard to face down one Devil when it was seven of them. Now they were down to four, and one of them was Boompa, who they probably should have left back at the bar with her mother. Her mom had been too distraught for words, urging them to go with her wet eyes. April shook it off, stopping the ball from jamming in her throat.

  Norm had turned out to be a pretty damn good shot and would come in handy. She’d worried that he’d cut bait and run when the shit hit the fan, but he’d proven himself.

  “What if we’re wrong?” she said, watching the road pass by in a blur.

  “Then we sit and wait for those bastards to come to us. And they will. I know it.”

  “And if they come and we still haven’t found Daryl?”

  “We’ll report he’s missing to the police. After everything that’s h
appened today, the Barrens will be crawling with them. We’ll find Daryl. Don’t you worry.”

  She felt his reassuring grip on her shoulder. April laid her hand over his, the skin tough and rough as burlap, his knuckles swollen from years of toiling at the farm.

  Looking down at the GPS, she said, “Ben, take the next exit and bear to the right. We’re less than a mile away.”

  He gunned the overworked engine, rocketing toward the exit.

  “Slow down or you’ll get us all killed,” she snapped.

  He didn’t even look at her, much less take his foot off the accelerator. The GPS guided them into a residential, suburban neighborhood, the streets lined with tidy Cape homes.

  “You have arrived.”

  Boompa slid the side door open before they came to a full stop.

  “You might want to come and lend a hand,” he said. “This might not go so easy.”

  They walked through a creaking, metal gate and up a few short steps to a wide, peeling porch. He rang the bell, giving the door a few raps for good measure.

  “I suppose Gordon’s hearing isn’t what it used to be,” Boompa said.

  The door flew open. A man as old as her grandfather, if not older, stood in the doorway, his full head of gray hair askew as if he’d just been woken from a nap, the lines of his face deep as wells.

  “I can hear you just fine,” he said. “That rust bucket you came up in can be heard across the damn Atlantic. Now who the hell are you?”

  “We don’t have much time for formalities,” Boompa said. “Are you Gordon Leeds?” The man narrowed his gaze at them, not answering his question. “I’ll take that as a yes. My name is Sam Willet. This here is my grandson, Ben, my granddaughter, April, and a friend, Norm Cranston. I need you to come with us.”

  The old man tried to slam the door, but Boompa shot his foot forward, keeping it wedged open.

  Gordon Leeds! April thought. Boompa said he knew someone special out here.

  To her surprise, Leeds’s face softened.

  “I know who you are,” Gordon said, wagging a finger at Norm. “I seen you on TV, right?”

  Norm touched the brim of his hat. “That w-would be me. No TV crew around for this one.”

  Gordon’s mouth pulled in to a rigid line. “I bet you wish you had. I know what you’re looking for. You won’t get any assistance from me. People like you have done enough exploiting of my family as it is.”